What happened to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers?

It was supposed to be another multiplayer action adventure - this time with a more robust single player campaign - much like its predecessor on GameCube. When the game was first shown to the public during E3 2006, it predictably looked like this.

But then something went wrong.

The Crystal Bearers started to phase in and out of webjournals and official Squeenix pages until it eventually turned into fine mist and disappeared. Cue several months of silence, leading everyone to believe it suffered inevitable cancellation.

More than a year later, right when everyone had forgotten about it, the game reappeared out of nowhere. Trailers showed that development had never really stopped completely. The Crystal Bearers, though, felt very different, even if the team behind it was, at least apparently, exactly the same as at its first announcement.

I’ve always thought that the Crystal Chronicles spin-offs are the true modern Final Fantasy games — until 4 Heroes of Light. The series’ schizophrenia turned every post-IV flagship title into something really different in terms of themes and landscapes. Too different, in fact, for my taste — yet often still enjoyable, mind you.

With the exception of Final Fantasy IX and partially XII, only Crystal Chronicles focuses on what I liked in the pastoral, early FF episodes, staying true to the series’ identity by portraying a simple yet bustling fantasy world, rather than just carrying over gameplay elements and summon names.

But my beliefs - and hopes - were shattered when I heard Bon Jovi’s voice introducing the Japanese trailer released in 2008 to show the game’s progress.

We weren’t born to follow carried a message - a warning - of what the game wanted to be. It made my right eyebrow twitch in disappointment. The trailer, packed with machine guns - dialogue and situations out of an action movie - was a bastardized version of what I used to love.

My favorite thing sullied to reach a broader or new audience, much like certain other chapters of the core saga, infused with western clichès and a disturbing superhero comic flavor. I couldn’t accept it.

It seems that most journalists shared my reaction. The game had as little coverage as possible until a few tepid reviews lazily followed its release, and even Squeenix didn’t lift a finger to promote it. It’s as if the company was ashamed of it.

The Crystal Bearers came out the day after Christmas in Europe. 

I didn’t bother to check sales figures, but with such a poor and unfortunate background and lukewarm media exposure, I cannot imagine it being a success. I suspected, in fact, that it flopped so hard that it might even led to a discontinuation of the spin-off series.

Eventually I decided to skip it: this wasn’t what I wanted from one of my favourite fantasy series.

Flash forward a few months later, when I stumbled upon the game’s soundtrack while looking for Kumi Tanioka songs; surprisingly, I really enjoyed what I found. It reminded me of the New Parm town theme. That alone made me decide to take advantage of an online sale, getting a copy of the game for less than 10 bucks.

The final product is not ashamed of hiding the scars of its rough development. In fact, immediately after a superb intro, they are proudly shown, starting with the clumsy physics engine.

The Crystal Bearers doesn’t know what it wants to be. Stupid minigames (complete with useless high scores), occasional puzzle solving sessions and traditional exploration mix with a weird battle system centered around the main character’s ability to control gravity.

The game lacks a true core mechanic and none of the facets of the gameplay feel particularly polished; yet, the adventure is dotted with so many interesting concepts and ideas that it’s hard not to wonder what would have happened if the game didn’t have such a rough gestation.

Interaction with the game world and its denizens is often pointless but sometimes impressive. Combat is one of the game’s main activities, and even if it can appear repetitive - and kind of pointless, considering the leveling up system sucks - it provides a lot of creative ideas to exploit the lead (he’s called Layle, by the way) telekinesis and gravity altering skills. 

Of course, some of the most impressive uses are related to boss battles, but even in everyday skirmishes there is a lot to discover and enjoy.

You can throw an undead skeleton’s bones to wild wolves who will wag happily and fetch them instead of biting your legs as usual, or crash wine barrels against a possessed samurai who will instantly get drunk and change his attack pattern accordingly.

Monsters can fuse or react in unexpected ways to items you throw at them, but sadly these details can easily get lost if you’re too busy focusing on the game’s inconsistencies.

The Crystal Bearers, turns out, is a modest title that knows how to reward players willing to give it a chance. And I have to admit I really got glued to it, despite my angst.

Don’t be fooled by a stereotypical lead with a cocky attitude and allies’ valley girl accents: The Crystal Bearers features an interesting cast, and Layle in particular is a protagonist that deserves your respect.

The story has a couple of really terrible parts - I’ll never be able to forget the scene with girls catfighting in bikinis on the beach - and is not well-directed, but is overall definitely enjoyable, full of well-played twists and memorable moments.

And all in all, the superhero tone of the script and actiony dialogue isn’t overdone, proving to be more entertaining than annoying, giving the classic Final Fantasy setting a fresh, different breeze.

Layle’s world is small but incredibly charming and peculiar, and it’s the true reason this game should really not be overlooked. Instead of abusing the usual set of locations, it takes players to a forgotten monastery sitting atop snowy mountains, a secret thieves’ guild located in the belly of a wrecked ship crashed against a reef and bathed by a burning sunset, a forgotten aqueduct and even a wine cellar.

The levels’ design and seamless exploration reminded me of Xenoblade Chronicles, which The Crystal Bearers doesn’t come close to in terms of size, but it almost competes when it comes to freedom and beautiful, inspired art design.

The quantity and quality of detail in every single location is almost overwhelming - even Manneristic. I’m not just talking about how the world looks - and it does look good - but also about how it feels alive. A great number of NPCs dwell in each inch of the game world.  Most of the time they just stand there or interact clumsily, just to show off the mediocre physics engine, hinting that, at some point, the game had some kind of MMO-inspired design.

Sometimes you’ll notice people building steampunk scarecrows in a cabbage field - and coming back later, find them complete and working. Waiters wander around while whistling famous Final Fantasy melodies; guards chase down rowdy brats.

The Crystal Bearers deserved more attention.

I feel extremely guilty for having overlooked it when it come out. The beautiful world, intersting story and characters, the lunatic (and stuper fantastic) soundtrack and even some parts of the gameplay are worth the - rather short, to be honest - ride. I really hope that Square Enix doesn’t completely ignore all that was achieved with this project.

Despite its bad reputation and all of its undeniable flaws, it not only has what it takes to stand proudly as a stand-alone title - it has the seed of something capable of bringing this decaying IP to its former shine.

Pic courtesy of this random artist found on Pixiv :D